Just Debt: Theology, Ethics, and Neoliberalism

Debt--personal, corporate, governmental--is so pervasive in contemporary economies, with its moralistic logic nearly unquestioned. Debt's necessity renders it morally neutral, absolving it of the dehumanizing effect it brings in unbridled financialization.

In Just Debt Ilsup Ahn explores ethical implications of the practice of debt. By placing debt in the context of anthropology, philosophy, economics, and the ethical traditions provided by the Abrahamic religions, Ahn holds that debt was originally a form of gift, a gift that was intended as a means to serve humanity. Debt, as gift, had moral ends. Since the late eighteenth century, however, debt has been reduced to an amoral economic tool, one separated from its social and political context. Ahn recovers an ethics of debt and its moral economy by rediscovering debt's forgotten aspect--that all debts entail unique human stories. Ahn argues that it is only in and by these stories that the justice of debt can be determined. In order for debt to be justly established, its story should be free from elements of exploitation, abuse, and manipulation and should conform to the principles of serviceability, payability, and shareability.

Although the contemporary global economy disconnects debt from its context, Ahn argues that debt must be firmly grounded in the world of moral values, social solidarity, and political resolution. By re-embedding debt within its moral world, Just Debt offers a holistic ethics of debt for a neoliberal age.

ISBN-13: 9781481306928

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Baylor University Press

Publication Date: 09-01-2023

Pages: 216

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

Ilsup Ahn is Carl I. Lindberg Professor of Philosophy at North Park University. He is the author of Position and Responsibility (2009) and Religious Ethics and Migration: Doing Justice to Undocumented Workers (2013). He is also a coeditor of Asian American Christian Ethics: Voices, Issues, and Methods (2015). He received his PhD in Social and Religious Ethics from the University of Chicago.

What People are Saying About This

Gary Dorrien

Ilsup Ahn adeptly shows how fantastic capitalist productivity combined with fantastic disparities has created a colossal, many-layered debt burden that crushes the poor of the world and inflicts immense harm on many others. His holistic approach to the problem creates an interdisciplinary conversation, emphasizes the ethical crisis, and sustains a hopeful spirit, all in perceptive and compelling fashion.

Nimi Wariboko

Debt is at the core of the encompassing neoliberal economy and its logic. Ilsup Ahn, with compelling and highly readable analyses, explains why it must also be at the core of social ethics in the twenty-first century. This book is a deeply interrogative wakeup call to social ethicists and theologians—the era of ignoring economic ethics is over. Those of them who want to remain relevant must pay attention to the lessons of this book, broaden its insights, and savor its alternative logic.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The History and Taxonomy of Amoral Debt
2. Neoliberal Financialization and the Idea of Just Debt
3. Unpayable Debt and the Ethics of Default and Bankruptcy
4. Islamic Financial Ethics and the Case against Rentier Economy of Debt
5. Jewish Ethics of Jubilee and the Question of Debt Forgiveness
6. Christianity and a Virtue Ethics of Debt
Conclusion